


Let It Snow

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Snowed In, Tumblr Prompt, X-Files OctoberFicFest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-22 10:16:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8282308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: “Hypothetically,” Mulder said, “if someone were out in this weather, how long would it take before they froze to death?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: non-spoilery S2  
> A/N: Because tropefic is always welcome.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

The weather report showed the storm squatting on the city like a toad with no intention of moving. The newscasters were stranded in the studio and had been all night. No amount of concealer could disguise the circles under their eyes. Scully sighed and turned off the television. She twitched the blinds open to glance out the window, but it was still glazed with ice, so that all she saw was a wavy blur of grey on grey on grey. The street was full of slush; she’d heard three cars slide into or over the curb in the last few hours. Most people were smart enough to stay home. Skinner had called to tell her not to come in to the office; he hadn’t sounded happy about it, but as he’d said, it wasn’t fit for man nor beast out there. The forecast had called for snow originally, but it had warmed up just enough to subject the city to hour upon hour of winter mix: wet, sleety snow mixed with ice pellets that pattered against the window and walls. 

Scully could her her neighbors walking around upstairs. It was strangely comforting. She usually wasn’t home when they were awake, and the soft creak of the floorboards reminded her of Christmas at home, when all the family was over and she and Melissa were allowed to curl up on the couch, feet pressed against each other under one blanket, after all the presents had been put out. She remembered hearing her aunts and uncles walking back and forth, tucking in her cousins, talking in low married murmurs. She smiled to herself, and that was when the phone rang.

“Scully,” she said, tipping her head to brace the bulky handset against her shoulder as she filled the kettle for tea.

“Hypothetically,” Mulder said, “if someone were out in this weather, how long would it take before they froze to death?”

“How hypothetically?” Scully asked, looking at the door by reflex, as if glancing up would conjure him. 

“On a scale of never gonna happen to must be fate,” Mulder said, and she could hear the huff of his breath and the sandy hush of sleet in the background, “I’d go with probably definitely.”

“Hmm,” Scully said, getting out a second mug and a bottle of whiskey just in case. “Should I draw you a bath?”

He panted laughter into her ear. “And here I thought that would never happen.”

“Fortunately, my water heater is gas,” Scully told him. “And so is the stove. I’m well-equipped to thaw a two hundred pound ice cube.” 

“I’m a lean 180,” he said and hissed as he slipped. 

“Regardless,” she told him, strolling to the bathroom to twist the taps, “if a hundred and eighty pound ice cube with dark hair and no self-preservation instincts showed up to drip slush all over my clean, dry, warm doorstep, then I would be able to offer that ice cube a warm bath, a hot toddy, a change of clothes that ended up in my suitcase somehow, and a brief lecture on how stupid that ice cube was to go out in this weather.”

“As long as those things happen in that order, we’ll be fine,” Mulder said, and she heard hinges and the suck of weather sealing. She wasn’t surprised in the least to hear a knock at the door. 

“I didn’t have any food,” he said when she opened the door. “But I have to say, Scully, driving in this is not the best idea. I had to abandon the car about about mile away.”

“Oh, Mulder,” she said reflexively, taking in his red cheeks and his drippy nose, the spiky fringe of damp hair under the edge of his hat, the slush sliding in clumps off his boots. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to go out in a blizzard? Although years of observation should have told me it isn’t like you would have listened.”

“How about that bath, Scully?” he asked, shucking off his jacket, shaking the snow off of it to melt into the hall carpet.

“I can offer you a choice of oils or bubbles,” she told him. 

“Not in a creepy death fetishist way, I hope,” he said, and twisted his lips in regret. “Sorry, Scully.”

She shrugged. “It’s all right. I redeemed my bathtub a long time ago.”

He raised an eyebrow and then subsided. “Good. I’ll try not to leave a ring.”

“If you do, you’re cleaning it,” she said. “Given the way this storm looks, you’ll be stuck here for at least another day. That’s plenty of time. Fortunately, I went shopping before the weather started like a rational adult, so neither of us has to play cannibal.”

“Funny that you got enough food for two,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Were you expecting someone?”

“Apparently some sort of melting yeti,” she said. “Let me grab those clothes for you.”

When she got back to the bathroom, he was shirtless and shoeless, standing in his bare feet next to the tub. She set the folded pile of his clothes on the lid of the toilet and put a towel on top of them. The water in the tub was milky with bubbles. 

“Jasmine,” she said. “A bold choice.”

“A little bit of summer in the middle of a snowstorm,” he said. “One of these days we’re going to work an easy case somewhere nice and warm, Scully.”

“A vacation on the government’s dime?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like us.”

“I’ll pay for the drinks,” he said. “But I think the people owe us one.”

“Go have your bath,” she said. “You can dream up our perfect adventure when you’re not half-frozen.”

“Then we can bundle up in front of the fire and go over cold cases?” he asked.

“I brought home a box just in case,” she said.

He sighed happily, the cuffs of his pants dripping on her bathroom floor. “Let it snow, Scully. That’s what I always say.”

“I’m sure it is,” she said, and closed the door.


End file.
